Reviews are based on multiple visits. Ratings reflect the reviewer's overall reaction to food, ambience and service.

The prawns are beautifully charred and smoky from the wood-fired grill, their crispy heads and eyeballs still firmly intact, resting atop a medley of sweet summer corn and yellow squash.

“That's everyone's favorite dish,” says my server when he sees me pulling off one of the heads and bringing the crunchy shell to my lips.

It's the sort of dish that will be hard to remove from the menu, even after the chef has long grown tired of it. Or when autumn dictates a change. I'll be curious to see how the menu evolves as summer's corn and squash disappear from the market.

Lark Creek at Fashion Island is the first foray into Orange County for the Lark Creek Restaurant Group, whose properties are mostly consolidated in and around San Francisco. Although aesthetically bland, the restaurant smartly capitalizes on Orange County's indoor/outdoor lifestyle, with exterior walls that slide out of the way and a wraparound bar that offers seating inside and out.

The Lark Creek group was co-founded by chef Bradley Ogden, one of the pioneers of modern California cuisine. His legacy of intensely seasonal, deceptively straightforward American cuisine is what guides the menus here, led by John Ledbetter, an O.C. native and a longtime veteran of the Lark Creek kitchens.

The pork chop takes advantage of the mission figs that are so prevalent at the farmers markets this month. The pork chop is 3 inches thick, brined in cider, grilled over almond coals then draped with caramelized figs in a bourbon and sherry glaze. It comes with classic chickpea-flour fries, or panisses, a comfort-food staple of Southern France, which are good on their own but even more decadent when dunked into the accompanying harissa aioli. The “fries” are crispy and creamy all at once, and you'll want to eat them while they're still as hot as possible.

I guess I should have done the same with the warm mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes. I inadvertently let the mozzarella sit for maybe 30 seconds before I take my first bite. When I do reach my fork for the usually soft cheese, the fork bounces back. The cheese has become a rubbery, chewy clump that tastes as appealing as that description suggests. Heating the mozzarella might not be the best way to put a spin on a classic such as this.

I push that dish aside and refocus my attention on the watermelon carpaccio, which is excellent. It's an entire cross-section of melon, thinly sliced and elegantly decorated with shaved radish and melt-in-the-mouth feta. I order the watermelon at the recommendation of my waiter, who talks me away from the corn soup. When I had asked about the soup, he responds tentatively but honestly, “I don't like it. It tastes like nothing but pureed corn. It's very one-dimensional.”

On a return visit, I ask another waiter's opinion of the soup. “It's good,” he says, not quite convincingly. But I've seen a picture of it on the restaurant's website and it looks beautiful, so I order it.

When it arrives, it looks nothing like that photo. The first waiter was right. It tastes like corn juice rather than soup. I swish my spoon through the thin yellow liquid and pull up two nuggets of bacon and a fraction of a piece of pickled baby corn, none of which adds much joy or finesse to the soup.

There's a dish called “Thai snapper noodle bowl” that is delicious but which is bound to cause confusion. The dish is described as including egg noodles, mushrooms and bok choy, and given the name, I'm expecting some sort of Thai influence. But when the fish arrives, I realize “Thai” isn't the right word. A strikingly gorgeous fillet of fish rests atop a bed of pleasantly chewy noodles in a deep bowl, into which my waiter pours a mild, almost sweet, dashi broth. If it has any Asian connection, I'd point vaguely to Japan. There is certainly nothing Thai about it.

Rather, I think the intended descriptor might have been “tai snapper,” which is how red snapper is commonly marketed, co-opting its Japanese sushi name. It might sound like I'm being persnickety with semantics. But semantics go a long way in creating the right – or wrong – expectation, which can end up becoming an unintentional bait and switch.

There's a feeling of bait and switch with the shrimp ceviche, too, which is described on the menu as being flavored with habanero chili. Yet when I taste it, I find no discernible chili flavor. Not even a whisper. Is it good? It's fine, maybe even a little sweet. Just not what I was expecting.

Although peppered with the occasional disappointment, I do find plenty to enjoy, including a very satisfying flat iron steak, a dependable roasted chicken and a big, fat burger topped with truffled cheese. At lunchtime, there's a wonderful chicken paillard that despite being as thin as lavash is somehow miraculously moistand juicy.

Mastering simplicity in the kitchen is probably the most difficult thing a chef can learn. And it's the simplest dishes here that are typically the best. That was always a hallmark of Ogden's brilliance, and it's nice to see his legacy passed on.

Service is friendly and honest, if not always the most graceful. One of my waiters is constantly running from table to table in a simmering near-panic, barely able to keep up. “I'm probably not going to remember that,” he says, half-jokingly, when I say I'll have a glass of red wine later but not right away. He's a nervous wreck. He accidentally spits on our table, twice. He notices it. We notice that he notices it. There is an awkward moment of silence each time, but the spittle doesn't actually land on anything edible, so there is no harm done. It's more humorous than gross.

There's always a corporate manager-type wearing a suit at the front door, hanging out with the hostesses. They always say hello and goodbye. But after three visits, I've not once seen any of these men actually walk through the restaurant and interact with a customer. They never even come within 20 feet of my table. It's almost as if they're here to keep an eye on their employees rather than to establish any sort of rapport or engage in any meaningful way with the clientele.

I suppose a lot of restaurant groups operate this way, like a well-oiled corporation rather than an individual owner with a vested interest. And it's one of those things that always makes a chain feel so much like a chain.

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